[RoisinFiona]

I wrote this as a piece of poetry I suppose, with no melody in mind. I usually get a melody in mind early on when I start to write a song, which can be either very helpful or extremely frustrating!
For this one I didn't. I would like to record it but the vision I have for it is really more of a drone, with the lyrics somewhere between spoken and sung.

I won't go into too much detail about its meaning for now.

Anonymous Population

I took a photograph of an empty landscape
Watched the sky drip and fade as an army of figures took shape
The anonymous population - they were promised everything
But now they're broken puppets hanging limply from their fraying strings

We're blinded by the glaring lights, ignoring all the signs
Forever falling downwards into television static sky
A paralysed nation falls into deadly slumber
Glassy eyes lament the fates of those who try not to fall under

What was elegance and beauty is now corrosion and decay
The gutter is a river washing shards of broken glass away
We made the laceration - it's deeper than it seems
Sycophantic mantras are descending into tortured screams

This street is starved of colour, the architecture shed its skin
Emaciated shells of buildings suffocate the sickly wind
In this degeneration we're fighting to survive
Our bloodstained rusting fingers clutching fragments of our former lives

Listen to the sound of questions howling through the night
I know there are answers but they're drowning in your concave eyes
In this disintegration we knew it couldn't last
So we'll dance among the rubble to the sound of shattering glass

[Innominate]

There is a lot of imagery/symbolism/metaphor here and the interesting combinations make it food for thought. Writing colorful prose that makes sense and that holds a meaningful idea can be difficult. If you write like this often then you're honing a valuable writing skill. However, I think the vagueness of the poem hurts it. It makes all the good writing sound like disconnected lines in a poem trying to sound intelligent but saying nothing, like teenage poetry trying to sound deep but ending up cliche, melodramatic or grandiose.

This work could benefit greatly from a chorus that groups all these cryptic ideas together into something cohesive and understandable. Contrasting the thickness of the verses with a simple, repetitious chorus that contains the main message you're trying to say might be a good idea. I think art needs a message, a purpose. Whatever this poem is about, don't be afraid to simply say it. If you're thinking of spoken word, the chorus coming in as a choir or group of voices, like a chant at a protest, might work as a fine vehicle.

Where is the flow? Either there is a structure to this and you've tried cramming in words that don't fit the rhythm or I'm missing it. I understand free verse and poetic license and all that, but this isn't really the place to post prose. Also, if it's prose there is no point breaking it up into stanzas and lines.

I don't mean to be overly critical. I like the spirit of the work and you clearly have the capability to write. The imagery is also wonderful. I just wish it was easier to understand and had some consistency, created some familiar, satisfying poetic pattern.

[GTB]

Hi RoisinFiona,  First of all  the title is brilliant!  I just had to open this up for a look.
As a poem this is a fantastic piece, I started out seeing paintings by Lowry, then Syria came to mind, all broken...  I could imagine Leonard Cohen speak/singing it softly with minimal background music.
Perhaps as a song it may benefit from a chorus or hook of some kind to sum up the whole thing, but the words are so beautiful I would be scared to meddle with it too much.  Maybe some simple repeated chorus being sung behind the main lyrics would work.  Please let me know if/when you have music for it as I'm really interested to see what you come up with.
GTB

[RoisinFiona]

Thank you both.

I wrote this while reading a book called 'The History of History' by Ida Hattemer-Higgins, about a woman who lives in Berlin and wakes up to find herself surrounded by ghosts from the city's past, and the city appears to be literally coming to life. I was not intentionally inspired by it but I definitely was on some level. The book was so rich in imagery, it blew me away.

Apart from that, a lot of the lyrics (especially the first and second verses) are about conformity. The 'army of figures' could be commuters, the 'paralysed nation' follows a reference to television, and with 'sycophantic mantras' I was thinking of company slogans and motivational speakers.

This is definitely not prose, and was never intended to be. There is a very simple rhyming structure and that is why it is set out like that.
I made a primitive recording of myself sort-of singing it, just over two chords, and I really liked the mood of it and intend to make a recording when I have thought of a more interesting 'setting' for it in terms of sounds, instruments or vocal layers.

The way I 'sung' it, the structure seemed pretty obvious. Apart from the second line of the first verse, which overlaps with the third, the lines flow into each other but the structure is definitely there.

I will think about a chorus, I like that idea. As it is, it does just tend to go on and on relentlessly!

If there is a story to this piece, it is that I am standing watching the street and the city fall to pieces and nobody else notices because they're too wrapped up in their work and their lives.
I was also thinking about times I have been deep in my own thoughts, or noticed something I thought was beautiful, and found it strange that all the people around me appeared to be going about their business like nothing mattered, or there was nothing to see.
Sounds a bit self-indulgent when I put it like that, but it's the best way I can think to describe it.



GTB, I'm glad to hear it made you think of Lowry! That is definitely the sort of imagery I had in mind.

 Thanks again

[benjo]

hey there fiona,

what a great imagination you have
thats the kind of thing i like to read
something that makes you imagine, dream, ponder, go back over lines and read again
some parts i may never understand but i think that's the point of pieces like this
the old grey matter works after it's been read if that makes sense to you
i do think this makes for a good poem
thanks for posting it, and well done you take care...